Department of Emergency Medicine

Emergency Medicine Simulation

The department of Emergency Medicine has been a leader at Maine Medical Center in simulation education for over seven years. It has a robust simulation curriculum that is evidence based, has clear objectives, advanced debriefing techniques and formal evaluation of resident performance. We currently devote one grand round session per month to engage in simulation education at the Hannaford Center for Safety, Innovation and Education. Our current activities include:

• High Fidelity Simulation: Every month our residents engage in simulated patient encounters that focus on the “topic of the month” (eg. cardiovascular, infectious disease). These cases are chosen to focus on both high risk and rare disease presentations. Additional topics have include death notification, end of life discussions, EMTALA, leaving against medical advice, child abuse, and crisis resource management.
• Procedural Skills Workshops: With the support of the procedural skills lab, task trainers, and dedicated teaching faculty, residents learn procedures including but not limited to spinal puncture, intraosseous insertion, central line insertion, basic and advanced airway techniques, tube thoracostomy, transcutanous pacing, transvenous pacing, pericardiocentesis, and procedural sedation and analgesia.
• Oral Boards Simulation: Several times a year residents undergo a “mock” oral board examination that mimics the physical setting and format of their oral board certification exam.
• Ultrasound: Every month the residents engage in formal emergency ultrasound education that incorporates task trainers to teach FAST exam, thoracic ultrasound, bedside emergent echocardiography, vascular access, pelvic ultrasound in first trimester pregnancy, and ultrasound guided procedures.
• Intern Bootcamp: To ensure a basic skill level in common emergency medicine procedures, new interns engage in an “intern bootcamp” session at the Hannaford Center where they are taught skills such as splinting wound repair and spinal puncture.

Click here to learn more about the Hannaford Center for Safety, Innovation and Simulation at Maine Medical Center.

Didactics

Click here to view a sample monthly emergency medicine didactic schedule.

The conference schedule for Emergency Medicine residents has been designed to ensure that each resident has ready access to Emergency Medicine instruction. While on outside rotations, Emergency Medicine residents are expected to be released for Emergency Medicine conferences unless direct patient care duties prohibit them from attending.

Tuesday mornings are reserved for Emergency Medicine conferences and residents are not required to work clinically in the Emergency Department or other off-service rotations. Four to five conferences are presented each Tuesday morning. The first hour is Grand Rounds. Medical and surgical presentations from Emergency Medicine and visiting staff are given. The second hour is devoted to reviewing critical cases managed in the Emergency Department trauma rooms. The critical case conference is given by Emergency Medicine attending staff and senior residents. The third hour is devoted to rotating topics including follow up conference, radiology and ultrasound. These conferences are coordinated by the chief residents and assigned faculty leaders. The final hour of Tuesday morning conferences also rotates on a weekly basis. Each month one hour will be devoted to morbidity and mortality conference, journal club, EKG conference, and Toxicology. Core curriculum and administrative journal club have recently been added to Tuesday mornings. 

Emergency Medicine residents are also expected to attend trauma conference. This conference is sponsored jointly by the Departments of Surgery, Division of Trauma Surgery and Emergency Medicine. This multi-disciplinary conference provides presentations on important subjects pertaining to the traumatized patient as well as reviews interesting patients managed in the trauma rooms. 

Additional focused experiences are provided to enhance resident training. A special Pediatrics day is run in cooperation with the Pediatric Residency Program at MMC. There are multiday conferences for practicing Emergency Physicians led by our faculty at Colby College in the fall and Sugarloaf Ski Resort in the winter that include resident participation. We run monthly pediatric critical case scenarios as well as mock oral board experiences. Our faculty has taken leadership in medical simulation and thus we provide monthly simulation experiences. 

ACLS, ATLS, APLS, and PALS courses are completed by all Emergency Medicine residents. The ATLS program is coordinated with the residents from the Department of Surgery. The ACLS course is completed during a one week orientation before the residency begins. PALS is coordinated with the Department of Pediatrics. Emergency Medicine residents will also have the opportunity to practice invasive procedures such as thoracotomy, cricothorotomy, tube thoracostomy and peritoneal lavage on TraumaMan in place of live animal models. 

Emergency Medicine residents are expected to be actively involved in Emergency Medicine conferences. Resident involvement includes active participation during case discussions, presentation of patients, and one formal lecture presentation during the second and third years of the residency program. 

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